2. Research background 

In this section, we first introduce the findings of the first phase of the project, followed by presentation of some key research relevant to this study, before elaborating on what we mean by national support initiatives.

This section introduces the main findings of this first phase of the project, which were presented in the discussion paper titled “Nordic overview of national support initiatives in urban planning” (see Huynh et al. 2022). In the Nordic countries, which are the focus of our project, the national level influences local-level spatial planning in three main ways, namely 1) planning legislation or legislation governing other sectors 2) financial mechanisms and 3) recommendations and guidelines (see Figure 1).

Those broad categories sometimes overlap and are not new concepts. However, the relatively decentralised planning systems in the Nordic countries give Nordic municipalities significant responsibilities with respect to implementing and steering local development towards sustainable urban development. In some cases, further support from the national level may be required alongside existing guidelines, recommendations and legal frameworks. The main focus of our project was on funding schemes, but we also looked specifically at Nordic planning systems (see appendix in Huynh et al. 2022). In the first phase of this project, we therefore aimed to understand better the range of support mechanisms for green and inclusive urban development in the Nordic countries, either through central government (state) initiatives or through nationwide stakeholders. It is important to point out that in Denmark, for instance, a common source of support for urban development projects is through sources other than central-government initiatives, prompting us to include a broader range of initiatives in our mapping exercise (see Huynh et al. 2022). 

Spatial planning systems continue to play a pivotal role when it comes to achieving national ambitions and objectives for green and inclusive sustainable development in the Nordic Region, whether they be specific to a sector or cross-cutting (Huynh et al. 2022). As can be seen, national support initiatives, such as Urban Growth Agreements and MAL agreements in Norway and Finland respectively, interact directly with land use planning, often with long-term effects on local urban development. It should be noted here that national support initiatives, or central government funding in planning, are not new concepts.

Various funding mechanisms target green and inclusive urban development in each of the Nordic countries. Some are better integrated with spatial planning and spatial planning systems than others. While the spatial planning systems of the Nordic countries may be considered relatively similar in international comparison, they differ in terms of the statutory planning instruments at national level, as well as the institutional systems and interaction between the levels of governance and the actors involved (see, for example, Schmitt & Smas, 2019). In summary, the spatial planning systems themselves also give the central states different mandates to influence local urban development priorities. While all Nordic countries have decentralised planning systems, Norway and Denmark have tools available within their planning systems to influence local-level planning priorities more directly. That is also relevant to sustainability targets.

Figure 2. Sub-categories of the possible content of national support initiatives in the Nordic Region. 

With respect to funding mechanisms, we identified a variety of existing or recently finalised initiatives that target sustainable urban development in various ways during the first phase of the project (see Figure 2). Another recently published Nordregio Working Paper specifically examined national funding mechanisms for cycling in four Nordic countries (see Rohrer et al. 2023). That complements our previous findings but focuses more directly on specific funds and mechanisms within the transportation sector for cycling.

In the first phase of our project, we observed that there are many different forms of funding or grants in the Nordic countries. Some of those have a specific, narrow focus, while others are broader and target land use development and spatial planning issues in a more comprehensive sense (see more in the discussion paper from the first phase of our project, Huynh et al. 2022). The former group includes, for instance, various subsidy pools (for example in Denmark). They are often more targeted and do not explicitly fund large sustainability projects in cities but may still be important in terms of achieving significant changes to fulfil the sustainability targets (for example, energy efficiency measures for buildings or a specific subsidy pool for cycling). The latter group consists of broader investment schemes – many of which are cross-cutting – that tackle a wide range of sustainable urban development issues. Those include several innovation and research funding schemes under which cities and municipalities participate in collaborative projects, including pilot projects and similar, as well as agreement-based approaches whereby the state co-funds large infrastructure and housing development projects in cities (such as MAL agreements in Finland).

Other national support initiatives identified in our study revolve around partnership building such as the Partnership for Vibrant City Centres in Denmark. There are different types of national support initiatives, all of which fulfil different purposes. Some are more directly linked to spatial planning and spatial planning systems while others are indirectly linked to and aim to influence spatial planning or have a complementary function with respect to achieving various sustainability targets in the Nordic countries.

In sum, most of the national support initiatives may to some extent be considered national examples of spatial planning ‘for’ Europe (Böhme & Waterhout 2008 cited in Dühr et al. 2010:360) that operate alongside national spatial planning systems in a complementary function or are integrated with them. The linkages between spatial planning systems and the extent to which such national support initiatives are integrated with local project work and local spatial planning practices are still underexplored.

In this report, we have aimed to further understand such linkages through various Nordic case studies, but also to explore further how the national support initiatives support municipalities in their work on sustainable urban development, as well as encourage and influence local sustainable solutions for local-level spatial planning and beyond. We also address current challenges, both with respect to implementation of the national support initiatives, but also more broadly from the perspective of the municipalities, including applying for and receiving support. As pointed out already, this will be examined through a range of types of national support initiatives in order to illustrate the variety of solutions in the Nordic Region.

Within planning studies, previous research has described spatial planning as a tool for policy coordination (see, for example, Stead & Meijers 2009; Nadin & Stead 2008; Nadin et al. 2021; Smas & Lidmo 2018), that takes form through multilevel governance arrangements (see, for example, Hermelin & Gustafsson 2021; Smas & Schmitt 2022). Although the Nordic countries have decentralised planning systems, with considerable decision-making power at the local level and municipalities playing the main role in regulating land use (Lidmo et al. 2020a), the involvement of the central government is still important. While the Nordic countries’ spatial planning systems may be considered relatively similar in international comparison, they differ in terms of the statutory planning instruments at national level, as well as the institutional systems and interaction between the levels of governance and the actors involved (see, for example, Schmitt & Smas, 2019).

In Norway, Denmark and also in Iceland, there is a ministerial tradition which means that they have integrated ministries with executive power. In the context of spatial planning, that means that the ministry can develop national planning guidelines and, more importantly, regulatory planning instruments. The latter is less common in Sweden and Finland, where there is a stronger technocratic tradition, meaning that autonomous governmental agencies have some degree of autonomy and are separated structurally from the related ministry or department (Schmitt & Smas 2019). That means that those governmental agencies do not have regulatory and legally binding planning instruments at their disposal and mainly perform the role of ensuring that national interests are safeguarded in local and regional spatial planning (c.f. Schmitt & Smas 2019; Lidmo et al. 2020b).

Table 1 outlines existing statutory planning instruments at the national level in each Nordic country. All of those planning instruments influence local-level planning (Lidmo et al. 2020b). Some may outline land use priorities and strategic decision-making, such as the Danish Planning reports, while others regulate planning directly, such as the central government land use plan (statlig arealplan) in Norway.

A study by Lidmo et al. (2020b) found that most of the national-level statutory planning instruments are translated and concretised through the multilevel governance framework and ultimately have spatial impacts, though the form of implementation varies. Furthermore, investment-oriented, agreement-based policies, such as place-based infrastructure, have emerged as planning instruments outside of the planning systems and have become more common since the shift from land use planning to strategic spatial planning (Schmitt & Smas 2019). That is especially true with respect to sustainable urban development. Spatial planning plays a related role as a tool for policy coordination, which may take place horizontally across sectors or vertically across levels of government (see, for example, Stead & Meijers 2009; Nadin & Stead 2008; Nadin et al. 2021; see also Smas & Lidmo 2018). That is normally explained in terms of the comprehensive-integrated planning model, which is also typically used to describe planning systems in the Nordic countries. It is a planning system that explicitly aims to achieve a degree of horizontal and vertical integration of policies across sectors and jurisdictions (Nadin & Stead 2013).

Schmitt and Smas (2023) question whether that planning model is undergoing consolidation or might, in fact, be susceptible to dissolution. Their empirical findings reveal variations regarding both the role of spatial planning within various sectoral domains and how those diverse policy fields influence the discourse in spatial planning. That suggests that not only is the planning system itself significant, but that the prevailing planning cultures and traditions in the specific territorial context play a crucial role in shaping the form taken by policy coordination and planning practices. However, as Schmitt and Smas (2023) also point out, there are hardly any comparative studies to date that systematically examine spatial planning and policy coordination, as would be needed to better grasp the role(s) played by spatial planning in terms of coordinating sectoral domains within the institutional landscape of multilevel governance frameworks. In our report, we do not necessarily address spatial planning as a tool for policy coordination per se. However, we do examine the role of national support initiatives, i.e. funding mechanisms with an influence on local-level priorities, and how they directly, or indirectly, influence work within local-level spatial planning. In other words, policy coordination aimed at sustainable urban development takes place through spatial planning with the support of national support initiatives.

Finally, it is worth noting that European funding also influences spatial planning and sustainable urban development in various ways. At the European level, we can distinguish between spatial planning ‘in’ Europe vs. spatial planning ‘for’ Europe. Spatial planning ‘in’ Europe refers to national and regional planning, i.e. the various spatial planning systems and practices across Europe within each national, regional and/or local context. By contrast, spatial planning ‘for’ Europe refers to various programmes, initiatives and instruments for spatial planning in terms of development of the EU territory as a whole (Böhme & Waterhout 2008 cited in Dühr et al. 2010: 360). Following that line of thinking, in each Nordic country there may be national variants of spatial planning ‘for’ Europe. Such initiatives may be called spatial planning ‘for’ Sweden or spatial planning ‘for’ Norway and so on. However, we refer to them as national support initiatives in this report. It is important to aim for a better understanding of how those support initiatives work within the context of multilevel governance frameworks, as many of them are embedded within such frameworks. Shedding light on that question can provide us with a better understanding of whether and how such national support initiatives facilitate and influence the policy coordination needed to achieve and govern developments aimed at achieving sustainability targets. Within that context, we have studied five different national support initiatives in the Nordic countries. In the next section, we will briefly outline what we mean by national support initiatives, before moving onto the empirical sections of our report.

Various forms of national support initiatives influence green and inclusive urban development. For example, planning approaches are emerging that complement the conventional planning system. Agreement-based planning approaches are one example, which may be described in brief as agreements between the state and local authorities under which the state co-funds large infrastructure and housing development projects in cities (such as the MAL agreements in Finland), often with municipalities granted the possibility to contribute local knowledge and influence the final policy outcome. While agreement-based planning approaches have long existed in various forms in Nordic spatial planning

 In Swedish, the term Förhandlingsplanering is commonly used to describe this.

(see, for example, Boverket 2007; Nyström & Tonell 2012), recent examples such as Stadsmiljöavtalen in Sweden, byvekstavtaler in Norway and MAL agreements in Finland all aim to facilitate sustainable urban development, achieve national objectives and better coordinate transportation planning, housing development and collaboration between various planning and sectoral authorities.

In the first phase of our project, we took the following working definition of national support initiatives as our point of departure:

As this broad definition underscores, national support initiatives may be similar to spatial planning ‘for’ Europe (see section 2.2). However, in the Nordic context there are also programmes and initiatives within each of the individual countries alongside EU programmes. As spatial planning ‘for’ Europe refers to various programmes, initiatives and instruments for spatial planning with regard to development of the EU territory as a whole (see section 2.2.), our working definition of national support initiatives may serve a similar purpose but within the national context. Such initiatives may be in place because the statutory and local-level spatial planning systems lack the tools or means to achieve the ambitious national targets. They could therefore be understood as another way for the national level to influence local-level spatial planning priorities. In other words, additional national-level initiatives may be considered necessary in order to influence Nordic municipalities and support them on the path towards green and socially inclusive urban development. In this report, we examine five different national support initiatives in the Nordic countries, aiming to understand how they are embedded within the multilevel governance framework and their connections to spatial planning systems. By doing so, we not only examine the initiatives per se, but also include case studies of municipalities. In the following chapter, we will outline our case study design and explain which municipalities and/or case study areas we have selected, followed by the empirical sections of our report.